Transformational way of running your IFA practice

If you are a young aspiring Independent Financial Advisor (IFA), then you will surely want to know how to start your IFA practice. Ask any IFA and the answer will be broadly on these lines. First of all, you need to pass the NISM exam. Then you need to get an AMFI Registration Number (ARN). The next step will be to get empanelled with various Asset Management Companies (AMCs) so that you can sell their products. In parallel, you need to rent or buy office space, pay security deposit, fit out your office with the necessary furniture and office equipment (e.g. computers, printer, broadband, phone etc.). You will also need to hire a couple of employees to start with, to help you with back office work, customer servicing etc. Once you have your first customer, you will have to collect the KYC related documents, do the paperwork and submit it to Registrar and Transfer Agents (RTAs) or AMCs before you start transacting. To many young aspiring IFAs, it may seem that a lot of time, effort and a significant amount of money that needs to be spent, even before you start doing business. Practising IFAs will tell you that, this is how they built their business – but there is another way.

IIFL AAA Tab – New way of doing financial advisory business

IIFL AAA Tab is a tablet based technology platform that will enable you to start and run your IFA practice without any investment by saving a lot of money on on-going fixed costs (e.g. rent, employees etc.). With the same tab, you can help your clients to invest in stocks, mutual funds and a variety of other financial products like fixed deposits, insurance etc. through the IIFL AAA application.

Customer on-boarding and transactions are completely online ensuring high productivity and cost efficiency in your financial advisory practice. The time and effort saved in digital transaction processing (as opposed to manual / paper based transactions) will enable you to focus your energy more on growing your business and building deeper customer relationships.

Knowledge is an increasingly important part of financial advisory. Through the learning videos in IIFL Academy on the same tab, you can upgrade your knowledge of equity, mutual funds, financial planning and other relevant topics. Success in investments is in large part, dependent on the quality of research. IIFL AAA app provides high quality equity research, mutual fund, insurance comparison and screening, so that your customers can make the best investment decisions. Finally, providing good customer service is essential in setting up a successful IFA practice. IIFL AAA app can enable IFAs to automate a lot of customer servicing effort and stay on top of customer queries through portfolio reporting, 24 X 7 chat bots etc.

Key Features of IIFL AAA Tab

• Equity Investment, Trading, Research, Technical analysis


• Mutual fund screener and online investments (e.g. lump sum, SIP etc.)


• Comparing health insurance plans and online purchase


• Online Fixed Deposit Investments


• Financial Planning


• 360 degree portfolio reporting


• Learning videos for financial education


• Investor queries

We will review some key features of IIFL AAA Tab and its several benefits in the IFA business in this blog post.

Mutual Fund Screening and Comparison

You can invest according to your customer’s risk appetite and investment needs from the category wise recommended funds. You can use the fund screen feature of the app to compare funds AMC wise or category wise. Using the Tab, you can share your recommendation to your customer via email. You can invest online either in lump sum or SIP in the fund of your choice. The IIFL AAA platform makes mutual fund investments a very simple process while providing valuable insights for making informed investment decisions. There is no need to fill out lengthy application forms, collect cheques from investors and submit them to RTAs / AMCs. You can do business with a few clicks.

Aspiring or new IFAs need not empanel themselves with individual AMCs if you are using IIFL AAA platform. IIFL has tie-ups with all AMCs and your clients will have access to entire spectrum of products.

Equity Markets

Equity Market watch list allows user to look upon live streaming prices along with a variety of other parameters in equity, commodities, derivatives, currency. You can have multiple watch lists, stay up to date on market and get relevant stock info. You will also get accurate, well researched, real-time trading ideas from a dedicated group of trading experts. You can see in the screenshots below that, the user interface is simple while providing excellent user experience.

Invest in other financial products – Insurance, FD, IPOs

Using the IIFL AAA app, you can compare health insurance plans (premium, sum insured etc.) of more than 10 insurance companies and help your clients purchase health insurance policy online. Your clients can also subscribe to company FDs using the app through a completely online process. One can also invest online in IPOs using the app.

Portfolio Reporting

Accurate portfolio reporting is an essential element of customer servicing in the financial advisory business, but it is a pain point for many IFAs because the process can be quite cumbersome due to multiple data sources and formats. In addition, IFAs spend a lot of time slicing and dicing data for analysing different aspects of portfolio performance. One of the most important features of IIFL AAA app is comprehensive portfolio reporting through 360 MIS, live P&L, Net Positions, ledger balances, contract notes etc.

360° MIS is portfolio reporting covering all asset classes (stocks, MFs, FDs etc.), insurance and liabilities (e.g. home loans, vehicle loans, personal loans etc.). There is no off the shelf product for IFAs to provide 360° MIS for their customers. With IIFL AAA app, you can provide 360° MIS for your customers.

Monitor and manage your business

Most IFAs start as one man / woman armies but as their business grows in size they face challenges in staying on top of all the issues in their businesses. With IIFL AAA app, you can monitor and track your business on a day to day basis, prioritize and address issues which need your attention. You can get a list of inactive clients, risk alerts related to your customers’ trades, missed SIPs, maturing SIPs, equity and MF business / AUM etc.

Other features

In addition to the features discussed above, the IIFL AAA tab has several interesting features:-

• Goal planning including risk profiling


• Investment planning / robo-advisory


• Investor Queries


• Training

Who is IIFL AAA for?

The potential user base of IIFL AAA Tab is huge

• Home-maker who wants to earn some extra income for the family through financial advisory


• Tech savvy fresh graduates aspiring to be a financial advisor


• Professionals like Chartered Accountants who want to provide comprehensive financial solutions to their clients


• Experienced IFAs who want to make their businesses more efficient and scale it up to the next level

The AAA tab has more than 400+ learning videos through which you can learn about financial markets, products and prepare for different NCFM exams.

Conclusion

The growth potential of financial services in India is huge. The Indian mutual funds industry is eyeing four-fold rise in Assets Under Management (AUMs) to Rs 100 trillion (Rs 100 lakh crore from existing Rs 25 lakh crore), and a five-fold rise in investor base to 100 million (from existing 20 million) over the next decade, according to the AMFI-BCG Vision Document.

A large part of this growth will come from the B30 cities. We think that the Government’s financial inclusion and Digital India will be key enablers in the next stage of growth in the financial services in India.

Servicing this fast growing market will require by hundreds of thousands of new IFAs entering this business. Existing IFAs will also have to substantially change their operating model and become more efficient. IIFL AAA Tab aims to align with Government’s financial inclusion and Digital India initiatives with the needs of the financial advisors.

IIFL AAA Tab provides a great platform for existing and new IFAs to run financial advisory business in a much more efficient and profitable way. To know more about this exciting new product, please contact IIFL Securities at aaaquery@iifl.com or at Whatsapp number 7208099499 or Missed Call number 08030088504 Or If you are interested in becoming Advisor than you can visit this link

(IFA can use RIA code for Direct Plans)